45 lessons from my kitchen
Tips, tricks, and grandma’s secrets that will make you a better cook — and maybe a better person.
The first time I cooked for my husband, I burnt the chicken and had to wash the salad because I used chili oil by mistake. It did not particularly matter. By that time, he was head over heels in love — luckily, the way to his heart was most certainly not through his stomach. We chewed on crisped up chicken, drank some wine and had sex on a kitchen counter. All in all, it was a lovely dinner.
I was never a bad cook but have massively improved since then.
I enjoyed Skye McAlpine’s lessons so much, I wanted to compile a list of my own. Here we go: tips, tricks, and grandma’s secrets that will make you a better cook — and maybe a better person.
It’s really hard to make a bad meal out of good ingredients. When you start with fresh, seasonal, and high-quality produce, you don’t need complicated techniques or fancy tools. A ripe tomato, a drizzle of good olive oil, flaky sea salt, maybe a torn basil leaf — and you've got something delicious and memorable with almost no effort. Good ingredients are forgiving, naturally balanced, and often shine best with minimal interference. It’s one of the quiet truths of cooking: quality over complexity wins every time. I do however understand that access to good ingredients is an immense privilege. Luckily there are other ways to make food taste great.
A good sauce can save any meal. "If an architect makes a mistake, he grows ivy to cover it. If a doctor makes a mistake, he covers it with soil. If a cook makes a mistake, he covers it with some sauce and says it is a new recipe." – Paul Bocuse
If you want to make anything taste better, add butter and salt. Butter brings richness, body, and that luxurious mouthfeel thanks to its fat content, while salt enhances flavor by waking up your taste buds and balancing sweetness, acidity, or bitterness. Together, they truly transform everything. That’s why restaurant food is so good — they don’t mind calories and don’t particularly care about your salt intake.
Not all salt is created equal. Learn about different kinds of salt and when to use each one. Just for fun: read this book to learn about the history of salt, it’s fascinating.
Use serrated bread knife to cut tomatoes. It just works.
You can bake bananas to ripen them. Well, you’re not actually speeding up the biological ripening process, but you are breaking down starches into sugars, caramelising the sugars and softening the texture — it does make a difference in the banana bread emergency. If it’s not an emergency, you can put them in a paper bag. Bananas emit ethylene gas, a natural plant hormone that triggers ripening. Trapping the gas in a paper bag concentrates it around the fruit. You can add an apple or avocado to the bag to boost ethylene output and speed up the process even further.
Baking soda is like the Swiss Army knife of the kitchen. Not only it’s great for baking or sore throat, it can also clean almost anything, including red wine stains on a wooden table.
Salt your pasta water. Aim for a small handful of salt per large pot. Also, always save a bit of pasta water for the sauce. The starch makes all the difference.
Always preheat the pan. Whether you're searing meat or sautéing onions, a hot pan is essential. It prevents sticking, creates better browning, and makes you feel like a pro. Give it a minute or two before adding oil or food.
If you love a recipe, write it down. Bookmarks disappear, memory fades. I bought those gorgeous Galison William Morris recipe cards, they make me happy and I haven’t lost a recipe since.
Any cake will look gorgeous if you cover it with fresh flowers. I usually wrap the stems in food safe plastic before inserting them in.
If your buttercream is splitting, the butter is too cold. Warm up a forth of it and put it back in, continue mixing, it should come together. You're raising the overall temperature of the buttercream just enough to bring the butter to a workable, creamy state. That lets the fat and water phases emulsify properly, resulting in that dreamy texture.
Coat chocolate chips or berries in flour before folding into batter — I have no idea how and why it works but they won’t sink to the bottom during baking.
You won’t have to cut off tops of your cakes if you level them during baking process. When you bake a cake, the edges set faster because they’re closer to the heat of the pan. The center, still liquid, keeps rising — and that’s what creates the dome. Use a baking belt or a cold wet tea towel wrapped in tinfoil, it works just as good. Slowing down the baking on the outside means the center and edges rise at the same pace — cakes will always come out even.
There is absolutely no reason for you to make your own puff or filo pastry. Unless, of course, you truly enjoy making it (or want to feel superior to the rest of us), then more power to you. But just so you know there are other easier ways to feel superior.
For example, using cast iron pan will make you feel superior for no real reason whatsoever but you will still enjoy the feeling.
Store bought is fine in general.
Flowers and candles will make any table look chic.
You can read cookbooks like novels.
Don’t wash mushrooms. They are essentially sponges. Moisture = steam = no browning. Use brush or paper towel to clean them. Wash everything else but dry if before putting in the pan.
Laurie Calwin wrote “It is wise to keep in mind that pots and pans are like sweaters: you may have lots of them, but you find yourself using two or three over and over again.” It is true. You don’t need a lot of things even if you think you do. My list of essentials is different than hers. The secret here, as in anything else in life, is to find what works for you.
You only really need to master a couple of recipes to be considered a good cook.
Using a bit of vodka in a pie crust will make it flaky. It ads more liquid in a form that doesn’t develop gluten. During baking, the alcohol evaporates completely, leaving a beautifully tender, flaky crust. Vinegar would also work but I am not quite sure on the science behind it. I assume, about the same.
Instead of cutting butter into flour for pie crusts or biscuits, freeze it and grate it in. It's faster, and it creates beautiful, flaky pockets.
Most people think Pavlova is difficult to make when it’s just the opposite, so if you bake to impress but want to make it simple — go for Pavlova. Just remember, room temperature egg whites will whip up more easily.
And just the opposite, the colder the cream, the easier it will whip.
You can’t always substitute egg with banana.
Kitchen scale is very very nice to have.
Same goes for a kitchen thermometer.
Sometimes things just don’t work out despite the science supporting them working out. Then you call it a will of God and order a take out. It’s fine.
If you chop bananas, freeze them, and then blitz in a food processor with a bit of milk or cream (peanut butter or any other goodies) for a few minutes, you will have the most delicious ice cream with no crystallisation. Add nuts and figs for a full on decadent dessert.
Taste your meatballs before you bake them. Take a small chunk of your mixture and fry it in a skillet, then taste. Adjust seasoning levels accordingly.
Don’t cook with the wine you wouldn’t drink.
Always always preheat your oven.
You don’t actually have to peel the ginger.
Sprinkling spices directly over a steamy pot causes moisture to rise into the jar, which gums up the shaker holes, clumps the spices, and can dull their flavor. To avoid this, always sprinkle into your hand or a spoon first, or pre-measure into a small bowl.
If you're using a garlic press, there's no need to peel the garlic — just pop the whole clove in, skin and all. The press forces the flesh through the holes while the skin stays behind.
Bone marrow is not only incredible nutritious but also delicious. Buy some beef bones at the butcher’s, bake them for half an hour, season with salt and pepper. Serve with chimichurri and fresh baguette. It’s an unexpected show stopper and it’s cheap. Plus your skin and hair will thank you. And your joints.
If your bread is dry or has been frozen, just run the loaf quickly under cold water — don't soak it, just a few seconds to dampen the crust — then pop it into a preheated oven for 5–10 minutes. The water creates steam, rehydrating the crumb inside while the heat crisps up the crust, making the bread taste almost fresh-baked again.
There are also a lot of marvellous things you can make with stale bread: obvious breadcrumbs and croutons, but also French toast and fruit pudding.
Grandma’s secret: tomatoes (off the vine) ripened in the dark often end up sweeter and more flavorful than ones exposed to direct sun during ripening. Just make sure they’re at room temperature, and not refrigerated, or you'll lose both texture and taste. I have never eaten better tomatoes than from my grandma’s garden so she must have known what she was talking about.
Another grandma’s secret: if your soup or stew is too salty, drop in a peeled, halved potato while simmering for 15–20 minutes (remove it after). It absorbs excess salt.
Entertaining doesn’t have to mean chaos in the kitchen or missing half the evening while managing everything behind the scenes. Opt out for dishes you can make in advance in big batches and serve cold, room temperature or easily reheated in the oven. There is a bit in Ina Gartner’s memoir about the first party she threw with her husband — for twenty people, no less, who didn’t know each other. To make matters worse, she decided to make an omelet for each person — a total disaster.
It’s more intimate and easier to serve dinner family-style.
As long as humanity exists, cooking and eating will be a social activity. Enjoy it.
